Frank Vogel comes to the Lakers with a reputation for instilling tough defense in his teams, and for being able to relate to his players. But he went 54-110 in two seasons at Orlando before being fired in 2018. (AP Photo/Laurence Kesterson)

LeBron James’ next head coach will be a man who once pushed one of his best teams ever to seven games.

One of James’ next assistant coaches will be one of the players who beat him in the NBA Finals before he had ever won a championship.

While the month began with the anticipation that the Lakers might hire one of the 34-year-old’s best-known coaching allies, the franchise has surrounded him with Frank Vogel and Jason Kidd – men who have challenged and tested him, in the hopes that new alliances can help lead them all back to greatness, even as they risk adding chaos and uncertainty. Their faith in collaborative leadership, which has characterized many of the organization’s personnel decisions in recent years, is likely to face its biggest test yet in the coming season.

That’s the chief takeaway from a whirlwind week which saw the Lakers lose out on one of their top candidates, Tyronn Lue, then quickly sweep up new faces and anoint Vogel after a furious second round of interviews. If the process doesn’t inspire total confidence in the organization’s choice, Vogel’s record helps solidify it.

As a young, first-time head coach in Indiana, Vogel progressively groomed the Pacers and then-budding star Paul George to become a team capable of challenging the star-laden Miami Heat. He did it with defense. For five straight years, Vogel’s teams were top-10 in defensive rating, ranking first twice. He also developed a reputation for creating solid relationships with players, with George telling the Associated Press, even after Vogel had been fired in 2016, that Vogel had been “real positive and open-minded.”

In 2013 when Indiana pushed the Heat to seven games in the Eastern Conference finals, it held Miami to less than 100 points in five of the contests – emblematic of the grinding style that defined the Pacers’ best nights. Only once in Vogel’s five-and-a-half-year tenure did the Pacers finish with an offense even in the top half of the NBA, but they always forced opponents to work, giving Vogel a .580 winning percentage in his time there.

“We represent all the right things: class, character, hard work, old-school basketball, playing the game the right way,” Vogel said of the Pacers after the Game 7 loss in 2013.

Those values seem to be the ones that Vogel will espouse coming into Los Angeles. It’s unclear if Vogel’s style – which fell flat in a forgettable two-year tenure in Orlando – has legs in the modern NBA, where the high-scoring Warriors set the ultimate bar. But on paper, the Lakers expect to be insulated by the other hire they made on Saturday.

In Jason Kidd, the Lakers sought to add gravitas and a player’s eye to the bench. The 46-year-old is second all-time among the NBA’s assists and steals leaders, and had mixed success as a coach, going to the playoffs three times in his Nets and Bucks tenures and winning one series. With the Bucks, Giannis Antetokounmpo developed into an MVP-caliber player.

His schemes drew some skepticism as a head coach, particularly an ultra-aggressive defensive philosophy which teams picked apart over time. Milwaukee’s near-overnight success this season has reflected poorly on Kidd’s tenure there. But as an assistant, he’d be under fewer of those pressures: As a contemporary of James, he has a previously earned respect, and various reports have linked him both as an example to and mentor of Lonzo Ball, who shares some sensibilities with Kidd’s playing style.

Theoretically, this mixture, along with James’ basketball mind, could be a strong group together, filling in for each other’s various weaknesses. The practicalities of those dynamics are complicated by other factors that basketball observers will be watching closely.

From the start, Vogel will face questions about his job security, particularly given the reported length of his contract: just three years. ESPN reported that Lue, the coach who once won a championship with James, took issue with such a short deal and wanted five years. That Vogel took the shorter terms will be a talking point if the Lakers struggle and allow them to cut bait sooner if they choose.

Kidd’s hire could also rock the boat, given that there’s an obvious in-house successor if the Lakers ever decide to move on from Vogel. Kidd’s experience as a head coach and rapport with James will loom in the background. Other reports indicated that Lue bucked when the Lakers told him they desired to hire Kidd to his staff.

Those questions are all before considering how James will respond to the hires. He’s yet to make any kind of public comment about Vogel and Kidd, and as recently as a week ago, he likely believed (as the rest of the world did) that the Lakers were ready to roll out the red carpet for Lue. Though James has played well for a number of coaches over the years, he too has had coaching clashes, most notably with former Cleveland coach David Blatt who was fired in 2016 after a 30-11 season start. That led to the rise of Lue, who led the Cavaliers to a championship.

As the Lakers progress, observers will be closely monitoring James’ faith (or lack thereof) in his coach, and what that might mean for the fortunes of Vogel and Kidd, who are now tied together for better or worse.

In their recent history, the Lakers have been willing to take similar gambles of pairing unfamiliar basketball minds: Magic Johnson’s president stint alongside General Manager Rob Pelinka was one such experiment – the two had not worked together before they set out to remake the team in 2017. The Lakers’ roster also reflected some of that thinking last season, with Johnson and Pelinka envisioning a group of “competitors” playing together such as Rajon Rondo, Lance Stephenson and JaVale McGee – that helped lead them down the road to a 37-45 season.

On paper, Vogel and Kidd possess qualifications that make it visible what the Lakers hope to achieve with collaborative leadership, having the best of all worlds. Whether they can get it will be the true challenge for the next coaching era.

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